For years, educators at the K-12 level have worried about white and wealthy flight from cities to suburbs and the effect this development has on the education of low-income and minority students left behind. But is something similar happening in higher education? New evidence suggests the answer is yes, though you wouldn’t know it from mainstream discussions.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics released its annual Condition of Education report, which had some bad news on the equity front for elementary and secondary schools but seemed to have some good news for higher education.
The report found that poor and minority students are increasingly concentrated in high poverty elementary and secondary schools. Between the 1999-2000 and 2007-08 school years the proportion of students who attended high poverty schools increased from 12% to 17% – a 42% jump. This increasing economic segregation is troublesome, as the Christian Science Monitor noted, because high poverty schools tend to have lower levels of parental involvement, lower expectations, negative peer influences, and trouble attracting strong teachers. According to the federal report, black and Hispanic students were eight times as likely as whites to be stuck in high poverty elementary schools (those with more than 75% of students from low-income families) and 15 times as likely to be in high poverty middle and high schools.
By contrast, The Condition of Education 2010 appeared to offer some good news about equity in higher education. Between 1972 and 2008, the report indicated, the percentage of high school completers who immediately enrolled in a 2 or 4-year college by the following October rose steadily, from about 50% to 69%. Notably, the report emphasized, the gap between high-income and low-income groups immediately enrolling in college shrunk substantially, from 41 percentage points in 1972 to 25 percentage points in 2008.
What the report didn’t note, however, is the increasing stratification – and white flight – within the higher education universe. As a forthcoming study by Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl finds, while the overall increase in enrollment of low-income and minority students in higher education is welcome, the trend is accompanied by white and wealthy flight from less selective institutions to more selective ones. The report, included in a Century Foundation volume entitled Rewarding Strivers: Helping Low-Income Students Succeed in College, finds that between 1994 and 2006, white student representation declined from 79 percent to 58 percent at less-selective and noncompetitive institutions, while black student representation soared from 11 percent to 28 percent, twice their share of the high school class. For those interested, the book will be released on June 17 at a forum in Washington D.C. featuring Carnevale, former New York Times education editor Edward B. Fiske, Lois Rice of the Brookings Institution, and William Fitzsimmons of Harvard University. Among the topics will be a discussion of how to reduce in higher education the economic and racial segregation that has been so damaging in elementary and secondary schooling.
12 Responses to White Flight in Higher Education?
jffoster - June 8, 2010 at 8:27 am
This sounds like A and B are going to have a discussion about how to entice or compell C’s children to go to with D’s children to colleges nobody ever heard of (or Regional Wherever States heard of for the wrong reasons) instead of aspiring and trying to go where A’s and B’s children go.
honore - June 8, 2010 at 8:32 am
Richard, for what it’s worth…”hispanic” is NOT a race, so comparing “hispanics and blacks” to “whites” is not only misinformed but misleading. Otherwise your report certainly provides food for the thoughtless in H/E.
bee12457 - June 11, 2010 at 9:29 am
I am always amused when education research gives us statistics on the obvious. It is not a new phenomena for whites or anyone of financial means regardless of race to aspire to the highly selective colleges and universities. Who in their right mind would go in the other direction if they had the means and the student had the ability. And since the gap between rich and poor has widened during the same period of time the results should be expected. The discussion should not be about what schools students select but what needs to be done to close the income gaps for the poor at the elementary and secondary level. Close that gap and the results in Higher Ed will change as well.
cwinton - June 11, 2010 at 10:01 am
I well remember that when an institution I taught at went from non-selective to selective admissions, enrollments began climbing steadily, even as admissions standards were steadily increased. Post #3 is quite correct, but clumsy social-engineering attempts in the past to limit the income gap between rich and poor have been misdirected given the very obvious human tendency of those who can to isolate themselves from those who can’t. Even the terminology is relative, since what we term poor in this country would be considered well-off in some parts of the world. The problem isn’t that there is a gap, it is the barriers that limit opportunity to improve one’s lot. What distresses me is the reduction of support (sports excepted) for opportunities to expand one’s horizons (e.g., music, art, science clubs, you name it).
mmccross - June 11, 2010 at 10:37 am
Another important thing to note is that less selective institutions, such as state universities, have much more distinguished faculty than they did just a generation ago. The silver lining of the academic job market is that unprestigious universities can boast highly accomplished scholars as faculty. Meanwhile some of the very prestigious institutions have engaged in academic in-breeding that has reduced their dominance. My point is that students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds may be going to less selective institutions than their more privileged counterparts but the educational opportunities at the less selective institutions are far better than is generally acknowledged.
wjprice - June 11, 2010 at 11:21 am
Some state universities that are experiencing white flight are also seeing an overall enrollment decline. The number of whites leaving (or not enrolling) is greater than the number of minorities who enroll. This was not mentioned in the article but I think is another aspect of the same problem.
11336803 - June 11, 2010 at 11:36 am
jfffoster: Everybody can’t go where “A and B’s” children go. It is a mathematical fact. What was true at one time was that “regional wherever” universities were considered very good places to go. Faculty who wrote and published and even more importantly taught. The A and B’s of this world take in the best, naturally they produce the best. We need to strengthen our regional comprehensives.
tbdiscovery - June 11, 2010 at 1:23 pm
If these students are graduating from high poverty schools, then it is likely that they are unprepared for higher learning. I’d be interested in learning how many more remedial courses these regional institutions are offering – or are the students simply transferring in from community colleges?The foundational deficiencies in elementary and secondary education (including family and socioeconomic inputs) are pushing community and regional colleges backward toward the high schools, while the elite institutions maintain their high standards or create highly-funded and targeted programs to get students up to speed. Placing emotions and morality aside, and focusing on the competitiveness of the jobhunt, it is probable that the regional institutions are becoming stigmatized and white students are bypassing legacy regional admits to get into elite institutions.
tgroleau - June 11, 2010 at 1:39 pm
“white student representation declined from 79 percent to 58 percent at less-selective and noncompetitive institutions, while black student representation soared from 11 percent to 28 percent”I don’t see why these percents bother people. If the proportion of black enrollment increases then the proportion of non-blacks has to decrease. Once upon a time the labor force was overwhelmingly male. In 2007 it was 46% female (www.prb.org/pdf08/63.2uslabor.pdf). Does anyone think this implies “male flight” from the workplace?Would the authors be happier if enrollments at these schools had doubled overall from 1994 to 2006 and it was still 79% white and 11% black?
drgabekeri - June 11, 2010 at 8:14 pm
The study may be a suspect…unless the following facts [which are in no special order] are addressed:1. Who and how was data collected?2. How were the participating institutions identified and selected?3. Were there hypotheses to be tested or research questions to be answered?4. What methods were used to analyze the garnered data?5. What statistical analyses were employed?6. Is the study and its processes open to possible replication by others?7. Type of [or were there certain] assumptions to be examined and verified?7. …and others!It is to be observed that the author possibly has anticipated these possible challenges to the current investigation. Good luck!
jherrera - June 12, 2010 at 12:35 pm
What this report or conversation misses is the fact that students in low income schools (mostly of color) are being underserved, not that they don’t deserve to go to the As and Bs schools. We need to change the way that we fund schools at the elementary and secondary levels, so that all students get a fighting chance at being successful wherever they decide to go for a college education. If “white flight” is occurring it is because whites, as has always happened, don’t want to be associated with people of color (unless we are cleaning their toilets or mowing their lawns). This is racism at its finest. If you have doubts, look at where whites live (usually in segregated, “no coloreds” allowed neighborhoods) even fifty years after civil rights legislation. I think that it has even gotten worse in the past ten years than it used to be. I belong to a country club and I am one of the very few people of color in it. The white folks have parties and other golf functions which are always (intentinally or unintentionally) exclusive of the folks of color, even though we all belong and pay the same money!! If we ask them about it, we are considered too sensitive for pointing it out!People be real! Wake up and realize how racist this country continues to be, even while claiming equality for all. If we had equality for all we would not be having this conversation.
gloriawalker - June 17, 2010 at 9:53 am
White flight has been and continues to be the escape. I have worked in schools where no minorities worked except me. I discovered that the students were not smarter and were not on the levels claimed. I discovered that the faculty was not superior either. There has been a claim that whites are superior in learning and talent automatically. It takes a lot of patience, confidence and prayers to even work in that environment. I had to prove myself every semester. My white students came to college without the foundation. This Kaplan college made a lot of money off these so called superior students. These students were basically 8th grade level with the idea in their head that they were smart, intelligent and superior. Because I am African American and their first dark teacher I had to find a way to reach them accounting wise. I also discovered that some of the prior teachers did not have a college degree! Some of the heads of programs never attended college! Before it ended my students realized what they were missing “education-wise”. I spent my personal funds and time helping the come up to the necessary level in the courses. With the exception of a few I was received by the students but never by the faculty or administrators. They replaced me with another white and all is well. Students still call asking me to help because they don’t understand or the teacher goes to fast. I give them steps to take in learning the concepts or refer them to something in the text. I discovered they had a petition for me to return and teach accounting and the president was very upset with the students.I feel that as long as there is a group of people that see themselves as superior and isolate themselves ignorance will be bliss.